United We Stand

by Christian Messe

  Mark squinted his eyes, conscious. He couldn’t look at Karalus. The constant bang was horrifying enough. He was drooling blood, and he could tell one of his legs was broken. His stomach was burning so bad that he winced after every movement he made. He looked at the control station, grunted, and started to crawl for it. Each time he lifted his arm to crawl forward, he could hear the haunting sound of Karalus slamming Douglas’s head into the wall.

  Part of him wanted to cry; the other part wanted to die… but he knew he had to keep going. Keep pushing, or else everything, everything, would cease to exist. He found the motivation to keep crawling, deep in his heart. He groaned quietly, spitting blood.

  Karalus finally dropped Douglas. His corpse hit the floor. “Oh right… you.”

  Karalus slowly limped towards Mark and picked him up. He looked him in the eyes, choking him. “Why,” he said, “Why do you struggle when it’s hopeless… I’m not the evil one here, you are, for trying to…”

  Right as Karalus’s mothership slowed out of I-Hypotonic warp, to be able to actually go into the sun without the frenzied particles being vaporized, another Jupitain warship slowed out of I-Hypotonic warp, and on perfect coordination, sped for the front of Karalus’s mothership.

  “All shields transferred to the bow!” Lewis shouted.

  The warship collided with the mothership with extreme precision. It had intercepted the mothership and exited light speed right before the mothership could pass it, turning it to the left slightly. The ship had been going so fast, that the sudden impact at the perfect time turned it off course dramatically.

  The Jupitains couldn’t compute with what was going on. It was all happening too fast. The mothership glided off course so dramatically, that it slammed headfirst into Mercury, splitting right through the planet, completely destroying it, and causing significant damage to the entire ship. Debris from the planet flew everywhere. The mothership had hit Mercury so hard that it flipped over, it’s main engine blinking on and off.

  Karalus dropped Mark and crashed into a wall. Mark grabbed hold of the grated floor and held on. The entire structure of the massive mothership creaked, the metal making a seeming ‘groan’ sound. Mark climbed for the control station, yelling with powerful motivation, pushing through the mind-boggling pain. He remembered his entire family… murdered by Jupitains… by Karalus. His sister killed for being too small. His mother, and father, for trying to defend her. He remembered them all dying, while all he could do was watch. Telli… Uliski… He reached the station, and hoisted himself up with both arms, groaning loudly. He looked at the functions, star struck.

  Then he saw it. The symbol that he knew would work. He had to overload the engine so that the Dark matter would ignite with the power of the engine first, blowing up the ship early. Douglas knew from the beginning this was a one-way trip… he just didn’t know how. Mark groaned, flicking switches, and pressing symbols on a control pad. It started a silent countdown.

  Karalus jumped behind Mark and lifted him up by the throat. “You think you can stop this, everything I’ve built?! Everything I’ve achieved?! There’s nothing you can do to stop JUSTICE, from taking its course. You’ll die-” Karalus leaned into Mark’s face, looking him in the eyes, “You’ll die knowing that.”

  Mark goggled blood, and it spilled onto Karalus’s exo-suit. “Look at you,” Karalus said simply, “It’s pathetic. What is it, what’re you’re last words?”

  “Fo-for… gah… f... family…”

  “What family? Yours? They’re dead, and I can assure you it wasn’t in vain. They died to avenge my own family. My own people. This, this was for the greater good, and now, now I can be at peace, knowing that the last of my kind, will go out with all the rest.” He looked down at the control station, chocking Mark even harder. Then he saw it, and his eyes got so wide from shock they nearly popped out of their sockets, “No… no, no, no, no no no no no NO!” He dropped Mark and frantically started to hit buttons on the control board. He started to whimper while he smashed the seemingly infinite amount of control buttons. They did nothing. He pressed a few more, then, sniffed, and slid down the control board, onto his knees, “I… I’m sorry, my little Ranoah.”

  The engine blew up, then a loud zooouuum sound echoed through space. The entire mothership dissembled into a trillion pieces, like a piece of glass breaking, then sucked itself all into a black hole. The black hole sucked in everything nearby, including all of Mercury, and a tiny, tiny little sliver of the sun, that was smaller than a Jupitain fighter. Then the black hole disappeared for a few seconds, then blew up like a supernova, sending a force so strongly into every direction, that it pushed the sun for almost ten seconds, not moving it, but causing it to split in half between the top and bottom temporarily.

  The explosion instantly destroyed Venus and stopped halfway between the distance of it, and Earth. Lewis and his crew left at I-Hypotonic warp faster than the speed of light to a safe distance. The explosion dissipated, and the sun reverted back to normal.

  CHAPTER 22

  Three weeks later.

  James was sitting on his bed, inside his quarters at Earth’s capital. The giant temple-like structure, above the center of the Atlantic Ocean. They were honored guests. Usually, important politicians or engineers would stay in the quarters for permission to talk to the Continental Congress. This time, it was Claire, Lewis, and himself.

  Claire knocked on the door. “Ready? The ceremony’s in two hours. You should be in that suit by now.”

  James didn’t say anything.

  “You know I can get in here if I want to, right?”

  James groaned, and walked up to the door, and opened it. Claire was wearing a clean, white, United Worlds military service uniform, with her hair made up perfectly. She looked beautiful.

  “Can I come in?” She asked.

  “Yeah,” James said simply.

  She walked in and looked around. He had the room dark, the only light coming from the doorway. She turned on a light, “Why’d you have it so dark in here?” She asked.

  James shrugged. “I dunno, liked it that way.”

  Claire shook her head. “For the thousandth time, it’s not your fault Mark, or the soldier you were talking about died, you would’ve too if you stayed.”

  “His name was Douglas… but it’s not that,” James said, a little angry, “It’s not that.”

  “Martians?” Claire asked simply.

  James sat on his bed, “They’re bastards, every one of them. They left us Claire, and now, we’re having a ceremony, to welcome them back? What kind of crap is that? We should be banning them… if they had stayed, they could’ve helped us kill Karalus. If they stayed, Mark… Mark could still be alive!” A tear rolled down his eye.

  Claire paused, “You don’t know that…”

  “What do you mean I don’t know that?!” James yelled, “They could’ve stopped that mothership before we even got on it, but they ran… don’t tell me you're actually siding with those cowards. You sound like one of those mindless supporters, that keep waving those welcome back signs everywhere… they didn’t see what happened that day.”

  “I’m not siding with them… I’m just saying that, well, we still need them. We’re lost without them, and nobody will ever forget what they did for us on Salvation Day.” Claire argued.

  “That’s their excuse. We saved you from extinction… well, that was nine years ago. We saved ourselves this time. They should be on their knees, begging for our forgiveness, besides we don’t need them anymore, we have the Lore now, they can help us, be our new main ally.”

  “The Lore,” Claire veered, “The Lore, needs to rebuild, they got it way worse than us, I should know, I was there.”

  “Oh yeah, where you learned how to use your magic hand,” James joked. “Your whole life you never asked what a Meta-Gene was, you never even noticed?”

  “Shut up,” Claire rolled her eyes, “How was I supposed to know?”

  James laughed, “Wa
lk out of the airlock of our clearing ship and see what would happen.”

  “Yeah,” Claire smiled, “Sure.”

  They looked at each other, just laughing, then smiling, until James said, “So, where’s Lewis?”

  “Probably out with Abigail.” Claire shrugged, “He doesn’t want to go to the ceremony at all, but if he doesn’t he might not get his own ship so…”

  “Blackmail.” James grunted, “Outrageous, they’re just gonna come and retake control of everything, and nobody even cares.”

  “People care,” Claire said, her expression hardened, “They just can’t do anything about it, most people don’t want them back… but everyone needs them back.”

  “We don’t need them.” James mumbled, “Besides we have you, you could just make us a new fleet with your infinite supply of resources… I still have no idea how that works…”

  Claire sighed, “The Dark matter from the Meta-Core combines with the Meta-Gene, and compounds itself, forming anything that’s not organic, I basically have the two most powerful elements in the Galaxy, maybe even the universe inside my left arm.”

  “Still doesn’t make sense,” James said simply.

  “It doesn’t really to me either, that’s just what the Cyrisian scientist told me before, well before he died.”

  “Guess I should get ready for the ceremony huh?” James asked, bored, even though anger was still boiling inside of him about the Kelisian’s return.

  “Yeah, guess you should.” Claire was about to walk out, before James said something.

  “Hey, just so you know,” He smiled, “I’m glad you were assigned on that asteroid clearing ship with me.”

  Claire smirked, “Well I’m glad you were the Captain of that ship, even though we like, didn’t see each other the rest of the time.”

  James chuckled, “Yeah,” he said dumbly.

  She smiled and walked out. He watched her walk away, wishing he had said more. He sat there and just thought to himself. Thought about everything.

  The ceremony was held in an outdoor stadium, the largest on the planet, built by the Kelisians for worldwide sporting events and ceremonies. It was on the North American Continent, where Washington D.C. had been. There were memorials everywhere. James, Claire, Lewis, and Abigail had exclusive access to a V.I.P. section.

  They sat next to billionaires, and other prominent figures at the time. The continental leader of North America was there. He was black, and his hair was completely white. Cut, clean, and well kept. He was wearing an all-white suit, and had two special operative guards standing behind him, armed with sleek looking laser rifles.

  “This is a mistake.” He said firmly. He looked at Claire, “You, and your friends… your all the real heroes.”

  “You can’t do anything to stop this, sir?” James asked.

  “Don’t call me sir… you’ve done more than I ever have for this organization… No, I can’t do anything, I’m just a symbol for people to think they aren’t completely ruled by the Martians… or I should say the name they kept from us. The Kelisians. All I can do is sit back, and clap for their glorious re-arrival. It’s not exactly a dictatorship, but it’s not freedom either.”

  “Dude, we’re sitting next to a continental leader… how cool is that.” Lewis whispered to James enthusiastically.

  “We’re sitting next to a pawn,” James said, grumpily.

  “Hey, it could be a lot worse; we could all be dead.” Lewis said, “I don’t want the Kelisians back either, but at least now, we can put all of this behind us and rebuild. We’re not nobodies anymore, we’re hero’s bro, time to get used to a new life.”

  James was about to reply, but then he heard the humming sound of the Kelisian mothership. It descended slowly through the clouds, and a sudden wave of cheering roared through the stadium, echoing in every direction. Only Claire and a few others in the V.I.P. section clapped. Everyone else just looked up, silently knowing that this wasn’t right.

  An intercom blared loudly from the mothership. It was the voice of the Kelisian main leader, “Humanity, we have returned.” The speech went on, and the stadium’s cheering got louder and louder, but it was all just a blur for James. He just sat there, staring. Lewis looked at Abigail and whispered something in her ear. They laughed softly and kissed each other. Deep down though, Lewis was troubled too. The Jupitains were still out there. They had dozens of major bases around the Galaxy, occupying the capital cities of once prominent advanced alien civilizations. The war, wasn’t over yet.

  Cyrus.

  Beep… beep… beep… pzzzccch. Static.

  “AI control… approved. Experimental Subject control… approved, rebooting… rebooting… rebooting.” A computer voice said, repeatedly.

  “Rebooting… reboot complete, beginning system scan… complete. Authority over mainframe… accepted. Beginning reactivation procedure… three… two… one… welcome back… Alpha.”

  The AI that had spread the Jupitains across the Galaxy, reactivated. Karalus’s hack had officially been broken. The AI had been trying to break the firewall Karalus had set up for years, and now, without any updates for three months, it broke the code. The AI had full control of not only the Jupitains, but every other Cyrisian experiment as well.

  The head screen of Alpha blinked, and it sat up. It had been sitting on a throne, where the Cyrisian Overlord once sat. It looked around, and got up, standing on its feet in front of the throne chair.

  Its face glowed red, and it said, “It’s been too long.”